HN user

kpetermeni

571 karma

Founder @ Kwagei Group Monrovia, Liberia My username at siakor, you know, com

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theconversation.com 3mo ago

Mississippi's Education Miracle

kpetermeni
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mybroadband.co.za 1y ago

Secret crypto code that helped end apartheid cracked, open-sourced

kpetermeni
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www.capitalfm.co.ke 2y ago

Police raid Worldcoin warehouse in Nairobi

kpetermeni
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www.bbc.com 2y ago

Worldcoin suspended in Kenya as thousands queue for free money

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www.reuters.com 3y ago

US charges former Apple engineer with attempt to steal self-driving car tech

kpetermeni
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andela.com 3y ago

Andela Acquires Qualified.io and Codewars

kpetermeni
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www.bbc.com 3y ago

Switzerland discriminating against men on pension benefits, ECHR finds

kpetermeni
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techcrunch.com 4y ago

African Leadership Group Acquires Holberton School

kpetermeni
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cryptoslate.com 4y ago

Web5 announced by Jack Dorsey’s Block to replace Web3 as future of internet

kpetermeni
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www.bbc.com 4y ago

Twitter investors sue Elon Musk and platform over takeover bid

kpetermeni
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www.axios.com 4y ago

Food Protectionism Is on the Rise

kpetermeni
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www.theregister.com 4y ago

Google Russia goes broke after bank account snatched

kpetermeni
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www.theregister.com 4y ago

Jeffrey Snover claims Microsoft demoted him for inventing PowerShell

kpetermeni
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www.who.int 4y ago

14.9M Excess Deaths Associated with the Covid-19 Pandemic

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www.aljazeera.com 4y ago

US man who got first pig heart transplant dies two months later

kpetermeni
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community.letsencrypt.org 4y ago

Issue with TLS-ALPN-01 Validation Method

kpetermeni
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depth-first.com 4y ago

Types Without TypeScript

kpetermeni
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afrinic.net 4y ago

Bank account of Africa's Internet Registry, Afrinic, frozen by courts

kpetermeni
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www.bbc.com 5y ago

Climate change: Science failed to predict flood and heat intensity

kpetermeni
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vixra.org 5y ago

There Is Something Rotten in the State of QED

kpetermeni
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techcabal.com 5y ago

Why Apple's planned privacy features won't roll out in some African countries

kpetermeni
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blog.twitter.com 5y ago

Establishing Twitter's Presence in Africa

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www.bbc.com 5y ago

'Havana syndrome' likely caused by directed microwaves – US report

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www.bbc.com 5y ago

Utah Monolith Disappears

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www.bbc.com 5y ago

Vincent Reffet: French 'Jetman' dies in training accident

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www.bbc.co.uk 5y ago

Have rogue orcas been attacking boats in the Atlantic?

kpetermeni
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apnews.com 5y ago

Egypt unveils ancient coffins, statues found in Saqqara

kpetermeni
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techcrunch.com 6y ago

What Is the Purpose of Belief in a World of Innovation?

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edition.cnn.com 6y ago

Artist Uses 99 Phones to Trick Google into Traffic Jam Alert

kpetermeni
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www.bbc.com 6y ago

US-government issued phones run 'Chinese malware'

kpetermeni
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and taking down all of Liberia’s Internet—to name a few examples.

This did not happen [1] as was documented here[2], here and here[3]. It spices up the story but in truth, one of local telcos was affected but they accounted for less than a third of Liberia's Internet traffic. The weekend-like Internet traffic seen on that day was because of a national holiday.

Additional source: I lived in Liberia during that time managing the local IXP.

[1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/11/did-the-mirai-botnet-rea... [2] https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/ddos-attack-mirai-liberia.... [3] https://twitter.com/DougMadory/status/794592487159529472

Besides operators, individuals can also send OTA settings like APNs, proxies, etc. from a SIM card to SIM cards on another network. To the recipient, the message looks just like the settings you get from local MNOs when you first get connected when roaming in another country.

I don't know where you get the idea from that corruption in Nigeria affects the safety of their very own artifacts. How is allowing the looters to keep the loot safer?

It is like saying that robbers can keep whatever they stole for as long as they can keep it safe.

Nigeria can choose to do whatever they want with their artifacts.

Yes, this is an example of https://xkcd.com/386/ so I'm creating an account on HN for the first time.

The attack against Liberia began in October 2016. More than a half-million security cameras around the world tried to connect to a handful of servers used by Lonestar Cell MTN, a local mobile phone operator, and Lonestar’s network was overwhelmed. Internet access for its 1.5 million customers slowed to a crawl, then stopped.

On a more serious note,this is seriously exaggerated. Internet penetration(mostly mobile broadband) was 21% during this period and was split between LoneStarCell, Cellcom, the govt carrier - Libtelco and smaller ISPs. For a population of 4.5m people, 21% meant each mobile operator had less than 500k Internet subscribers.

The post-apocalyptic description of the impact of the DDoS doesn't fit the feeling in that period ( Nov '16). Friends from outside Liberia reached out (ironically over WhatsApp) to ask whether Liberia's Internet was cut off. I checked and saw international media reporting an Internet shutdown which was even more confusing. After emailing a couple of friends at various ISPs and the regulator, I finally got confirmation that LoneStar was under attack. Apparently, they were keeping it a secret. It did not make national news for another 2 months until the formal complaint and lawsuits were filed. Mobile broadband was very patchy back then so perhaps people just assumed it was the usual state of affairs. Now, we have LTE on both operators and an upcoming pre-5G operator.

Source: I'm from and have been based in Liberia (2015-present) and used to manage services at the national Internet exchange during that period.

National Regulator: http://www.emansion.gov.lr/doc/CONSULTATION-DOCUMENT.pdf Export.Gov: https://www.export.gov/article?id=Liberia-Telecommunications... Twitter Thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/tksiakor/status/79486360223055872...